Umpqua Bank
Companies
Umpqua Bank meets community needs during COVID-19 through employee giving and volunteering.
Oregon-based Umpqua Bank not only shifted its own operations and services during COVID-19 but quickly adapted its social responsibility efforts to drive the most impact. With Blackbaud’s YourCause® solution, Umpqua Bank expanded donation matching, focused on charities with urgent needs, and offered ways for employees to get involved virtually.
When COVID-19 began impacting customers in its five-state region, Oregon-based Umpqua Bank took swift action to help.
The bank approached its response methodically, first identifying the mosturgent needs, then setting up ways for employees to get involved, and rollingout that assistance in a thoughtful way—all while providing resources to customers seeking relief programs, mortgage assistance, and other financial support and transitioning its own teams to remote work.
With Blackbaud’s YourCause solution, Umpqua Bank selected charity organizations to highlight through its employee giving program. The bank expanded its company match from a dollar per dollar to a three-to-one match and focused on specific types of organizations to support, rotating the featured charities every few weeks.
“We worked to fill urgent needs first,” said Jordan Bowen, operations manager. “We had the program ready to go before we even had approval. The platform was just so responsive and really helped advance our ability to help our people and communities during this challenging time.”
Umpqua Bank first focused on international, national, and regional COVID-19 response funds, then food access organizations, small business support groups, childcare support organizations, and finally charities nominated by employee resource groups. The bank also set up virtual volunteering through YourCause, connecting its employees with nonprofits that previously received funding from the bank.
Partner organizations surfaced 25 virtual volunteering opportunities in the first two weeks alone. Umpqua associates sewed medical masks, helped with data entry, read to children, and more. As more services and programs have transitioned to maintain social distancing, associates are now also taking grocery orders, hosting financial education workshops, and participating in panels and informational career interviews.
“Our team’s approach is to ask community partners what they need instead of guessing,” Bowen said. “We want them to think of us when they need hands to support them.”
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